Public Interest Monitor hamstrung by Labor self-interest

Queensland’s new Public Interest Monitor (PIM) would be hamstrung by Labor self-interest unless the Attorney-General adopted key Fitzgerald recommendations for bipartisan appointment and operation, the State Opposition said today.

LNP Leader John-Paul Langbroek said if the PIM office was to genuinely oversee issues of public interest, the Attorney-General needed to act on Fitzgerald’s recommendations.

“The real danger is the office will be prostituted with the appointment of another Labor mate,” Mr Langbroek said.

“If Cameron Dick, as part of his campaign to be Premier, is going to put in place an unbiased and bipartisan process for the appointment of a Public Interest Monitor – then he must follow Tony Fitzgerald’s 20 year-old integrity recommendations that appointments to such important public positions be filled through cooperation between government and opposition,” Mr Langbroek said.

“His failure to do so will mean whoever is appointed will be subject to criticism they are not impartial and therefore ineffective.

“Indeed, it will show that any Dick government will not be straying from Labor’s history of ‘Rum Corp’ appointments and largesse for mates.”

Mr Langbroek said Labor’s PIM model had already been attacked as little more than window-dressing with the office having virtually no power to monitor public interest.

A prime example was the PIM would be unable to question outlaw declarations of organisations in the same way the use of phone-taps and listening devices could be.

The PIM would be unable to question informants or operatives to test their bona fides and information.